How to Empower People Through the Government
Tom Shrader teaches on power in government, applying the five principles of biblical power (proficiency, ownership, work, encouragement, and release) to governmental structures. He explores how true governmental power should empower citizens to participate meaningfully rather than creating entrenched leadership that distances people from involvement. Drawing from Romans 13 and Exodus 1, he emphasizes that all government is established by God and that Christians must be model citizens even while recognizing God's ultimate sovereignty over all earthly authorities.
“Power is given by God for us to use but to pass on.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Power Broker
Recorded: May 18, 2006
Duration: 43 min
Themes: authority, power, government, citizenship, leadership, sovereignty, submission, service, civic leader, government employee, voting christian, political activist, community leader, struggling with authority, new citizen, public servant
Scripture: Romans 13, Exodus 1, Exodus 1:8, Exodus 1:11, 2 Timothy
Theological Themes: romans 13, biblical authority, divine sovereignty, god's providence, civil government, christian citizenship, governmental authority, biblical politics
Full Transcript
Today is session 7. Let me offer a disclaimer up front. This is probably the most un-priority living lesson we've ever done. There's a lot of stuff in here that's just an odd lesson. I don't know how else to say that. We're talking about power and we're talking about power in government. I run out of positive illustrations on how to deal with some of that, so I apologize for that. Again, I apologize to the mayor, but the town here might be the exception to all that we talk about today.
This is not political in its nature. I don't care. I learned a long time ago, though I have in the past made some stupid comments, I try to be as apolitical as possible only because I'm much more concerned that you know Jesus than you're registered with the right party. Though I could help you on the party thing afterwards if you're interested. In fact, as you know, we can't even do that. When it comes to politics, we're very restricted. We can't endorse candidates—would never do that. But we can talk about issues. None of that today though.
I want those to be disclaimers so that as you leave today, you're in a very gentle mood as you evaluate the 45 minutes you're about to invest.
Moving From Theory to Application
We're talking about power, and in a sense the first six weeks have been theoretical and the next four weeks are application. We said power is not how we typically think of it. It's not get it, keep it, use it up, suck it up and kill the people around you and maintain a power base. No, power is given by God for us to use but to pass on. Along the way we have said there are four institutions that model it: government, family, work, and the church.
These next four weeks are extensions or applications of that. We took government first because that's the most difficult really to illustrate. It's probably the one, honestly, that for most of us in the room we're the most disconnected from. I mean, we can talk about family stuff and many of you can implement it today. Most of you have grandkids or kids or a spouse or something and we can do that. We can talk about work and many of you can implement that. We can talk about church and you can have some impact there. When you get into the governmental thing, oftentimes it's a little difficult.
I just want to give you some principles here and in a sense apologize that you can't use it necessarily today but maybe help think through this process. That's not the most powerful introduction ever written, is it?
The Five Elements of Power
We've talked about power this way: five things. Proficiency, ownership, work, encouragement, and release. Proficiency: right person, right place, right time, right everything. Round peg, round hole. The mantra that seems to have caught a little bit of steam, the one that you email to me or you ask me about is this: I don't want to spend years getting better at something I'll never be good at.
So if I've got ten things I need to do, three of them I do real well, seven of them I don't do well, while the conventional wisdom is let's get him trained in those seven, I think wisdom dictates, no, you really fire on those three and get better at those.
Years ago, I just went through a whole series of books where I just picked them up and I was reading a book every other day or something. They were just whole books and I was trying to immerse myself in ideas. I read a book called How to Lose Friends and Irritate People and I read a whole bunch of them. One was a book I bet some of you have read called If It Ain't Broke, Break It.
A Story About Proficiency
In the course of this, this guy was an author speaker and he was talking about proficiency. It's interesting because it was right after I had done this series the first time. Here's what he wrote. He wrote a story about his own life and he said here was my problem: I am absolutely disorganized. I have stuff everywhere. So I hired a consultant to come in and help me get organized.
The person followed me around for a week. At the end of the week, gave me a whole bunch of things to do. Never handle the same piece of paper twice. Clean off your desk every night. All the stuff you all kind of know. He said after two months, I had three results. Here they are. Number one, I was a little more organized. Number two, I had a roaring headache. Number three, my speaking engagements were down a third and I hadn't written a word.
His point was I was so out of my game. I'm not saying that you can't change. Jesus changes hearts. Jesus changes lives. We were talking about it a little bit before you got here this morning. I didn't make Sunday and I used to be the guy that's been bragging for 20 years. I've never missed a speaking thing and I've missed like three of them this year just being sick.
When God Changes Us
I got so sick Saturday night, literally to the point about one o'clock. I took a shower in the morning. I said I know I can do this, and then you don't even want to know. Just imagine. None of you have ever been this sick. But if you were as sick as I was—I don't know that anybody's ever been as sick. It's ICU level sick. That's what I'm saying. So I couldn't do it.
I made the comment because somebody said missed you Sunday. Then we started talking about how we used to get the liquid flu. You know when we used to drink a little bit and we'd have that flu three, four, five times a week. Well God changed that in my life. God changed a lot of things. But He really doesn't change a lot of your personalities and your giftedness. You're kind of just wired a way. Now do some people change? Yeah some do. But most of us, we're not going to change.
He's wired. And you take him out of that game and you hurt him. It's like taking Dan Marino and putting him in a West Coast offense. It isn't going to work. It's like taking somebody who's a run and gun guy and put him in a slow down two-man offense. That's just not how they're wired.
In that book, If It Ain't Broke Break It, the author writes this: If you try to become proficient at what was your weakness, it'll take an inordinate amount of time. And that means you don't have time to keep improving at the things you're already good at. So your skills get rusty and you end up mediocre at everything. That so-called well-rounded personality is really very, very, very rare. Well-rounded most often means flat. And so that's what we mean by proficiency.
The Five Components of Empowerment
The second one was ownership. You're a steward, not an owner. I have a chance, I think I'm speaking to the young singles on Tuesday night and the next two Tuesday nights and one of them in there will be about ownership. You all got it. It's a revolutionary process. I can revolutionize your life today. You don't own anything, you're a steward of it.
So when I'm talking about my money, here's how it changes. It's not how much money should I give to God, it's how much money, how much of God's money should I keep. I mean it changes everything when I start to see it this way.
The third thing is work. You have to understand why you do what you do. Where do you fit? Even if your job is just an assembly line going, it's not that you're out there trying to find a cure for cancer, but you need to understand if you want to go, you missed that third one, we got a recall. We got a problem. You're important wherever you are. You have to understand that.
Then encouragement. We did an exercise that's a wonderful exercise and maybe some of you weren't here. If so, you need to do it. That is to think of three people who had a real impact on your life. And for me, because I'm sick essentially, I thought of negative influences. I thought of the person that told me you couldn't do it. So I break it out this way. Think of three positive and three negative.
Almost always if you go, what was it about them? It was what they told you and a sense that they gave you that they had confidence in you. Encouragement. Not blowing smoke now.
The Importance of Release
Then the last thing, because none of it works if you don't have release. The idea of now you've empowered somebody, now go do it. People are going to be free whether it's by design or by default. Those kids that you're raising are going to get out from under you either in an orderly, systematic way or they're ultimately going to rebel. And away they go.
We say the same thing. I say the same thing all the time at church. Listen guys, here you go. We're an aging generation. I'm 56. We're aging. Now some of you I know are way further beyond that. But we're aging. We're going to transition the church to the next generation. It's just like raising kids. We can hand them the keys in a systematic way or they can pry them out of our cold dead hands. I mean it can go either way. It's the same thing. It's the same thing at work. It's the same thing.
When we get to government, it gets a little more difficult. Let me give you just one little thing on release and this may be too theoretical. But the larger your structure of organization becomes, the more difficult release really is. Because the minute we start to add layers to an organization, all of a sudden, we lose efficiency.
We have to have a policy manual. I've talked to you about it before. It drives me nuts that we have a policy manual at church. I can't believe it. We have a policy on sick leave, which I said, you've got to be kidding me. I'll write that policy. If you're sick, stay home. If you feel good, come to work. I mean, I don't know what kind of policy do we need on this stuff. But the bigger you get, the more removed you are, the less empowered the guy in the field really is. And to the extent you can empower the guy in the field, the organization, the structure stays fresh.
The Mission of Human Government
Here we go. We're talking about government, the mission of human government to empower people to become participating citizens who are capable of advancing an agenda of the nation and enjoying current benefits of active involvement. They're participating and involved, participating and advancing an agenda, working toward a common good.
And you see it. This is just me. And again, I'm going to give you a lot of my opinion today, frankly, that it is just that. I mean, unless we say chapter and verse, it is just opinion. And so you take it for what it's worth. And if it doesn't ring true to you, blow it off. I don't care. I don't want to. I have to go right afterwards. So I don't want to talk. I don't want to debate about it. I don't want to argue about it.
But again, as the government and the nation becomes bigger, a citizen begins to feel further distanced away and less participatory and less involved, less engaged. And you begin to see a de-energized nation.
Global Trends in Politics and Economics
Interesting, I was listening to a guy the other day speak. And he was talking about governments in the world, countries. And he said, think of a triangle with three areas. He said, the political side and the economic side are pretty well being decided. Now, you can argue about it. But he said, basically, democracies won the day. And we understand battles and all that. But basically, we see that.
Economically, even in a place like China, we're seeing a boom that's taking place there. Right now, they have under construction in China, in Beijing, the equivalent of two Manhattan Islands. That's amazing. Walmart has 100, I think the number I read the other day was 160,000 individual manufacturing entities in China. China's understood, even though we're still this. We're still free enterprise. We understand markets are going to drive. And again, even in an environment like we're in now, and I know
This is way too political, way more political than we ever get. But even in a market like we're in now, I don't need the government to fix gas supply and demand. The minute you mess with that, you got issues. Economics and politics are solved.
Here's the third thing: spirituality or morality. In other words, what spiritual entity or moral entity is going to rule and win the day? And there is a huge, gargantuan, cataclysmic battle for hearts and souls and minds of people.
The Hidden Agenda in Government
Here you go, the hidden agenda in government. If there's a hidden agenda, it deals with power. Here you go: power residing in the position that's owned by the person who's in the position, the person in the position benefiting from the people, and the person in the position satisfying only His own forces that can get Him re-elected.
So you take, for example, a young, starving congressman. This guy's got no money, gets elected to Congress barely, then gets elected to the Senate, then becomes a vice president of the United States, then a president, and retires with millions of dollars. Now, how does Lyndon Baines Johnson do that? How can that possibly happen? And I don't mean that sarcastically, I'm just saying, how does that happen?
All of a sudden, government begins to lose its real meaning when the power is: get in power, expand the power, hold the power. The last congressional cycle in California, northern California, you had an area, a district, that had 135 seats up for election - county seats, state seats, federal seats. All 135 in that election, all 135 incumbent parties won their seat. Not one seat changed hands. Something's wrong. So the guy in power's entrenched.
So what do we do? We get nuts and say, "Well, you can only raise $5 per person." How stupid is that? Just tell us who's giving you the money. See what happens in that?
Real Power and the Structure of Government
Real power, the structure of government, is that power's enthroned in God, that God establishes government. We can't get away from this. Romans chapter 13: all governments are established by God. And they're there to bring law and order, peace, comfort, protect their citizens.
That's why in Romans 13, and it's so painful for some of us to hear, and if it's painful for you and me to hear, how painful must it be to hear if you're living in the Sudan or Iraq: citizens submit to your government. It's empowered or enlightened leaders who are to empower citizens.
Symptoms of an Unempowered Citizenry
How do you see symptoms of an unempowered citizenry? What would it look like if government had taken the power away or if the people didn't feel empowered?
Number one, there'd be a decline in voter turnout. A couple of years ago, the city of Phoenix had a special election. Voter turnout: 7%. There was an election in Chandler the other day, and a guy got a call. He said, "At this point," and I forget how many registered voters there were in His area, something like 1,200. He said, "At this point, 35 have voted." So there'd be a decline in voter turnout.
Here's the second thing. There'd be an ignorance of foundational issues. I guarantee you, absolutely, I guarantee you that I can go to Fashion Square this morning. You pick 10 people. I'll pick 10 people. We'll ask them, "Name the three guys left on American Idol and three cabinet members." And I guarantee you, we're going to get more than can name American Idol than can name cabinet members.
Or two, didn't it go to two last night? Did the girl go off last night? Who went off? Oh, the one guy, the guy with the bad teeth. Yeah. All right, that's enough now. We're done with that. But you get the point. All you got to do is watch Leno go on the street. All you got to do is listen to those things and just listen to those basic things.
Family Leadership and Vision
By the way, because I'm going to jump all around, and I know this is frustrating here this morning a little bit, but the same thing is true in a family. There has to be a foundational understanding of the basics. In other words, you're the dad in the family. You've got to sit down and say, and this sounds really - you never think of this in terms of a family, do you? You need to cast vision for the family.
"Hey, here's who we are. Here's what we're about. Here's your mom. Here's me. Here's how we got this way. Here's why we do what we do." I was always doing that with our kids. You know? Oh, you know, the other kids. I'd say, "You know what? Never did like the other kids. Other kids aren't staying here. Other kids aren't sleeping here. Could not care less about the other kids."
And they'd say, "You know, boy, you're hard on your kids." I don't think we were hard on our kids. We had standards and then we held them to it. There's nothing wrong, there's nothing hard about setting a standard and then saying achieve it.
And I would say to the girls, "Girls, man, you're great. Love you. But I'm not your friend. Never thought I'd be your friend." In fact, if you're really doing your job as a parent, there's going to be friction because you're going to say no to them on some stupid stuff that they want to do. But you're the family historian. You're the mom. You're the dad.
And you know what? To this day, Haley called five times last night. "What about this?" And she was making some dinner. Then she called and she said, "Listen to the baby." I said, "I don't want to listen to the baby." "Oh yeah, that's really good. Oh, that's cute." You know, I don't care. Talking with friends, you know, all that goes with it.
Leadership Consistency at Work
It's the same thing. Here you go. It's the same thing at work. I met with five pastors yesterday. We meet once a month. And this guy was going, "You know what? It's driving me nuts." And I said, "No." He said, "I'm saying the same thing to our staff and leadership every week." Daryl DelJose, when we began, I called Daryl and I said, "You know, I need some advice." He said, "Let me give you two pieces of advice. Number one, the senior pastor is always the church
Understanding Government Fundamentals
Historian, meaning you've got to be saying, this is what we're doing and this is why. Number two, you've got to say it over and over again because not even your staff will remember. I've got to have a basic understanding of what we're doing. That's what government is about, to understand and to stay in those areas, to understand the basic foundational issues.
Let me move off of this a second. It's the same thing that's true in faith. I've got to understand the basics of the Christian faith and then build upon that. I am convinced, if you take all the series that I've done, the one that people come to again and again and order more than any other series is Christianity 101 because it's the basics. If you get that right, it really doesn't matter beyond that in the sense that if that foundation is solid, God can build a skyscraper on it. He can build a mid-rise, a low-rise. He can build a ranch house. He can build whatever it is with your life if that foundation is solid and if I understand that basic foundation.
Signs of Political Disengagement
Here's a third thing where you see de-energized people: political uninvolvement. It would look something like this. You would get an envelope that said jury duty and immediately think how can I get out of it. We're talking about involvement. That's probably the most concrete way other than voting and some other that you can be involved. Yet the minute you get it, what do you think? I don't want to do this.
Now I've told you before, if you want out of jury duty, I can tell you how to get out of it. When you show up, just say "He's guilty or we wouldn't be here. Which one is he?" Then you're out. They never make you stay. You never have to stay after that. But I watched Susan. Susan served on a jury on a murder trial and it was an excruciatingly painful thing. She had to watch. It was a very difficult process. But that's part of the deal, right?
Disconnection from Elected Officials
Number four, no contact with elected officials. You just don't see them. The mayor is different. But in my district, I've lived in my district for a long time. My congressman, here is the one, and I'm not making this up. I'm not fabricating it. I've had four or five congressmen. Here's my only contact other than one rare instance with John McCain. I will give John McCain credit on one rare instance.
My only other contact in the 25 years I've lived in my district: I'm pulling off one day on the country club exit and I moved over. I didn't see a guy and I kind of cut in front of him. I pulled up. He was in an SUV. I looked over. He gave me the finger and it was my congressman. I thought, which explains how a reelection evaded him shortly after that.
The Problem of Polarization
Here's the last thing: polarized with hot issues. I think there's one thing that drives me nuts today. It's that you can't have a discussion about anything. About anything. So if I listen to Jesse Jackson talk about Clarence Thomas or Thomas Sowell or J.C. Watts, he in essence says those guys aren't black. Well, they look black to me. I listen to conservatives who will have a guy who lines up on every issue but one and they're all of a sudden trying to equate this guy to Teddy Kennedy.
It's the whole immigration thing. I must be and I think I am a little bit deficient. I think I'm missing a sensitivity gene, I guess. But I don't understand why all the emotion about the immigration issue. It just seems to me we ought to be able to sit down and say, "Okay, we need to secure the border. Is there anybody against that? No. Okay. We'll go do that. Let's baby step our way to this." I understand it. But when everything is this polarized, this is exactly how Paul describes the last days in 2 Timothy. People will be lovers of self. They'll be battling.
Family Breakdown Reflects Larger Issues
You've got parents. I will have parents all the time come to me and say, "I don't even talk to my kids." I say, "What do you mean?" I don't get it. I don't have a box for that. I don't have a file for how you can't talk. My kids come in, they go in the room and they just play the games. Tell them to come out of the room. Go in the room. Real easy.
I'm not kidding. Get a hammer and a screwdriver and take the door off the bedroom. I don't understand it. It makes no sense to me. If you're letting your kids dictate that, you've lost control. You're not parenting. You may think you are. You aren't.
You've got kids that can't. You can watch it. You can watch them walk into church, which I always find ironic, and you can see the scowl on the kid's face. You can watch them sit there. Everything in me wants to walk up and just knock this kid right on his can and say, "Who do you think you are?" Now, having said that, I can sit there and watch husband and wife do the same thing. I want to knock them on their can and say, "Who do you think you are?" But we're so polarized. Think about it. If you can't figure out your kids and you can't figure out your family, how are we going to take 275 million people who don't even care about each other and live at peace? It's a big issue.
Five Root Causes of Political Disengagement
Here you go. Causes of it. Well, number one, people feel incapable of contributing. It's E on your outline. People feel incapable of contributing. There's nothing I can do. Two, they lack familiarity with foundational information. They just don't even understand. We talked about it earlier.
Three, they live without seeking and receiving any hands-on assignment. There's really no point. What is it? What do you want me to do? Four, they disconnect emotionally from their elected leaders and may become cynical. I laugh. I'm cynical.
Number five, they entertain distrust and passive rebellion. When you start hearing numbers of the billions of dollars of taxes that go unrecorded or go in a black market or cash business, when you got guys that are saying to me, "Pay me with cash," let me tell you what you do. Pay me with cash. Why is that? I don't have records.
What you do: call the IRS and say, "Old Joe over there wants to be paid with cash." That'll shut that down. I'd move right after I did it, but I'd shut that down. But that's what you have. You got people saying, "Hey, the man's too big. The man's got all this stuff." And again, I feel so passionately about it, and yet I'm not going to do anything about it because of the investment I don't seem to be able to make.
Did anybody see 60 Minutes Sunday? And the only reason I did is I was homesick. It's good to know no one's watching CBS, but they had a story on a school in Harlem. If you can go online to CBS.com and pull this story up, let me tell you something, you would be inspired by this. I got goosebumps. It was an inspiring story.
It's a black man, and he's just saying, "We're given generations away, and we're going to change it." And he put in place a school. You know what kind of school it was? It was like a real school where you listened and you taught, and where discipline was part of it. Do you know what they had to do to get in? All the parents came in, and they had a lottery to get in. So if you messed up, they didn't give you three strikes and you're out. They gave you a called strike and you're gone.
They put them in uniforms. The boys wore ties. Now, we're over my edge here, but the boys wore ties. It was yes, sir, no, sir. It was every kid. They'd already lost the older generation. They were having problems with high schoolers, not with the ones in there, but they were trying to catch them up. But these younger kids, they were at their expected level or beyond.
What the guy had to do to make that happen was get them out of the government-run school, put together a charter school, take the money from the charter school, and then go raise a bunch of money to support it. Jerry Brown, not a screaming liberal, is the mayor of Oakland. He's trying to fix the schools.
Here's what Jerry Brown said: "Number one obstacle we have, the entrenched teacher's union. We can't get anything done because of the structure." And I'm only making you feel worse.
The Educational Crisis
1983, they say, was the pivotal year in education. They said, and I don't know how they measure this stuff, in 1983, for the very first time, we started graduating high school students that did not know as much as their parents. First time ever. Not as bright, not as sharp, not as broadly educated as their parents.
I will give you a solution. Let me give you hope. If GM, if every third car that GM cranked out was a recall, they'd be going nuts. Dateline and everybody and their uncle would be down there. If every third computer that rolled out of Apple didn't work, you'd have a problem. Every third kid is failing in your school system. 1,200 kids are dropping out every day.
I'll tell you what, if you want to have an impact, you don't need to be a senator. Don't need to be a congressman. You can impact it at the ground up. You can impact the way it works at a school board level.
I had lunch or breakfast with the mayor a couple weeks ago. It was fun just to talk to him about the whole environment and the town and the site of what a change he can make by just being there and being him.
Biblical Examples of God's Sovereignty
I'll give you a couple of Biblical examples. Here's what's interesting: I think every time we give Biblical examples, they're really great Biblical examples of here this is, here's how it works out. These are lousy Biblical examples. They're lousy Biblical examples of government, but they're great Biblical examples of the sovereignty of God.
Because I have a tendency to be a half empty guy. I have a tendency to look at what things are the way they are and say, "I don't think they're going to get better. I don't see hope. I don't see it." I really do know that the only hope for the United States or anyone is Jesus.
There's a great time in the book of Exodus. Steve Brown has a ministry called Key Life and Steve Brown does a little 15 minute radio show every day. It's the second best show that's on the radio. It's a great little radio show. Steve Brown has great doctrine and a heart, which you don't see very often.
He was talking the other day and I heard him say, "When I go in to speak to a group I assume seven out of ten of them are hurting." So here today, if that's true, we've got a whole lot of hurting people in the room. And you're going, "None of these things you've told me are helpful to me really. No one's uplifted by this."
Drawing Hope from God's Sovereignty
This next part is designed to uplift you. Because if you're a follower of Christ, if you're truly converted, then you're going to draw great pleasure, not from your circumstances, but from the fact that God's sovereign and God's in control.
We're getting ready. This is the most we've ever taken. We have, when we're all done, there'll be about 850 of us going to junior high, high school camp this year. About 750 kids we think. So it's a little bit of a job.
For the very first time ever, we're going to SeaWorld. So my question was, "How many kids do you think we're going to lose at SeaWorld?" and I don't want to be around when it happens. But 750 kids. Well, here you go. If you want to feel sorry for somebody in this equation, I've got to teach them six times. You've got to understand, if 750, we've got 400 that don't want to be there. Parents are making them go, or a friend said, "Hey, we get to go to SeaWorld and get to stay by the ocean." So they're going, but they could not care less about the part I'm in.
Here's what we do, because we celebrate communion. That's a pivotal part of it. What we do is we send all the kids out of the room, and I wish I could have you there with
We'll take almost a block, and there'll be 700 kids, there'll be three or four feet apart, all isolated by themselves, in absolute, utter silence. We will say to them, we're about to celebrate something very important and very sacred, communion. You don't take it if you aren't a follower of Christ. When they come back in, you will watch, and a good chunk of them will not go down and take communion.
The next morning, I congratulate those who didn't take communion for honestly acknowledging that they're pagans. I find great encouragement that you honestly understand where you are. That's way better than just going and taking communion to make your mom and dad happy, or make us happy. You understand who you are. You understand that all the things we're talking about don't apply to you. All these benefits, that peace and love and joy, that doesn't apply to you.
Biblical Examples of Governmental Failure
It's the same thing here. We're going to look at Exodus chapter 1. There's a new king in town who doesn't know Joseph, Exodus chapter 1 verse 8, and he pays the consequence of that. There are now, the nation of Israel is growing. There are at this point about two million Jews. The Egyptians are frustrated. They don't know what to do in this process.
If we're looking at a biblical example of failure of government, this is governmental failure. Here you see, the people are viewed as the enemies. The king looks around and he said, "We must deal shrewdly with them, these Israelites, or they will become even more murderous, and if war breaks out, they'll join our enemies." All of a sudden, the government sees them as enemies.
Barney Frank was on the other night, and a good thing about a guy like Barney Frank or anyone in those positions that are secure in their seat is they'll be honest. Barney Frank looked in the camera and he said, "I hear a lot of complaining about elected officials. I want you to know something. You people are no bargain either." This is pretty good.
Government Exploitation and Oppression
Here's the second thing. People are exploited by their government for their own people. People are used. Government plays politics. Here's what happens. It's in Exodus 1, verse 11. "They put the slave masters over them and oppressed them with forced labor," and here's what happens. "But the more they oppressed them, the more they multiplied and spread."
Do you see that? They piled it on and piled it on and piled it on, and the more they piled it on, the more the nation prospered. Here you go. Hit the pause button. Apply it to your life.
Here's what happens. I got stuff right now. It's like every day I'm saying, "I can't believe this." And then comes another thing, and then comes another thing, and then comes another thing. Yesterday morning by 9 o'clock, all I did was teach PL and go to my office and have a meeting, and by 9 o'clock, I was entirely out of my game of what I had planned for the day. And yet I know this is a rich time, though it doesn't feel that way. I feel, what are the words, oppressed.
Growth Through Hardship
But what do we do? What do we understand? God's in control. Count it all joy when you encounter various trials, testing, difficulties. Why? That's the only way you're going to grow. That's the way we learn. Those are the inspirational stories. That's the story of your life really, isn't it?
If I started over here with Scotty and went all the way around the room and said, "Give me an incident in your life, a time where you really grew," almost always it'll be a story out of hardship and difficulty. Almost always. You'll watch it all the time. "I would never want to go through it again, but boy did I grow."
I've watched it in the stuff with Susan. And again, to be in it again. And here we are, right smack in the middle of the thing again. But I watched it in the midst of it. And here's what I've watched. I watched that Susan and I are closer than we've ever been. We have a better relationship than we've ever been. I think our girls understand that, although it can be true of any of us, but their mom could be here or not be here. And here's this grandson and all this stuff. Our lives are richer because of that cancer.
My life is richer because of the hurt and the pain. And the same thing is true of you. Your life is not made rich just by knocking a shot stiff, making the putt and getting a birdie and walking off. Your life is made rich by the difficulty and the hardship.
The Value of Tough Times
Now I can't live there forever. I got to have a putt that rolls in. I got to have something that happens. But hardship is what breeds strength. What was true of the greatest generation? Many of you. You're tough people. Raised in a tough world. Tough life. Christmas was an apple and a nickel. It was a tough life.
But you know what? You look back and you say, we do it all the time. The best years we had were the years when we didn't have a whole lot. We weren't worried about much. And we just kind of did it. We left. The same thing is true. Don't lose sight of that.
The System's Vulnerability
Here you go. The emphasis on government becomes eternal security. I'm not going to take you through all these passages, but basically here is where we see them tell the midwives kill all the boys, let the girls live. It's exactly the opposite of what they're doing in China. In China they kill all the girls and let the boys live right now. The enlightened leaders were forced to operate outside the system.
And then lastly, on your outline, the system of the government became vulnerable to elimination. Here's what's happening. God is going to say to Pharaoh, "Let my people go" and they're going to go.
I went through high school, college, and I never read a book. I read a couple of sports books that were unrelated, but I never read a book. I have no idea how I got through. I had a lot of really smart people sitting around me. When I got out of college and God saved me, I became a bit of a reader. And one of the
One of the things I noticed is a lot of the books I was supposed to have read in college were really good books that you're supposed to read, like the Iliad and the Odyssey. So some of them I went back to read, and one of them was The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. I will confess, I read the abridged version.
In that book, as he describes the fall of the Roman Empire, I just from memory jotted down a couple of things that he mentioned. Alienation from a central bureaucracy, breakdown of law and order, couldn't control its borders, centralized power, gap between the rich and the poor, weak in defense, oppressive taxation, and the suppression of the middle class as the upper class lived in luxury. Here we go.
The Purpose of Government
The whole idea of government is to train people to function as involved citizens, to distribute essential information, to emphasize citizens' involvement or citizenry over bureaucracy, to find effective participation, and to empower people. Probably the best way to do that, frankly, in most instances, is to simply get out of the way.
Can I show you something restrictive? How many counties are there in Arizona? Fifteen. How many counties are there in California? How many counties are there in Iowa? Ninety-nine. Now think about that. Ninety-nine counties in the state of Iowa.
Here's the reason. In 1846, the state was divided so that you could go anywhere in the county to the county seat, transact business, and return the same day. Makes a ton of sense. There's an empowered citizenry.
The Challenge of Entrenched Power
In the early 70s, when I was there, I thought, you know what? This is - now, if that was true then, it's really true now. This is an antiquated way of doing business. Here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to be governor of this state, and I'm going to revamp this thing. We need about five.
I started this little internal questioning. You know how far I got? Not very. Why? Ninety-nine board of supervisors, ninety-nine county attorneys, ninety-nine county treasurers, ninety-nine county auditors, ninety-nine county agricultural seats, all these things, all that entrenched power.
Our Response as Citizens
My point here is not to be hopeless. My point is to get government out of the way, really, so we can talk about family and church and workplace. But to say, listen, in this governmental structure, we are to be model citizens. We can be involved.
God's called you to submit to the government. Even in the midst of this, because I confessed to not being encouraged that things are going to change, even in the midst of this, God's sovereign and God's in control. God knows what He's doing, whether gas is at five dollars or a buck and a quarter. It doesn't matter. God's in control.
Where Our Power Comes From
Those of us who are followers of Christ, we're going to derive our power from Him. In reality, we're going to have much more ability to exercise the concepts and the principles that we've learned in family and in work in the church. That's what we'll look at the next three weeks.
Father, help us see this truth. We thank You for it. We praise You. We worship You. We thank You that we live in this country. The greatest bet, I'll take it. I got nowhere else I want to live. God, thank You for that.
We pray for our leaders from both parties. We pray, God, that You would give us government that is best for us. In all of this, Father, we pray to You. We don't pray to a president or a Congress. We pray to You. Our faith and our hope and our trust is in You and You alone. We pray to You in Jesus' name, amen.
Have a great week. We'll see you next week.